Tuesday, August 23, 2011

Stila palette - Living the life in Laguna

I love Stila. The end. Except this would be a boring post if that's all I had to say. As you know, Stila made it's return to Ireland recently and I had to go say hi, would've been rude not to. I managed to restrain myself and just picked up the Living the life in Laguna palette and a smudge pot in Kitten. Today, Living the life in Laguna palette gets it's time to shine.

Stila Living the life in Laguna palette

This is one of five collectible beach palettes from Stila and is No. 5. I had made my mind up to buy just one palette beforehand, cut to me standing in Boots like a lunatic holding two palettes and asking my sister to "pick onnnnne for meeeee, I can't dooo it myselllllf!" Needless to say, she could have cared less and went off leaving me alone to make my decision and so this is the one that made it's way home with moi.

The main focus of this post will be the shadows because the cheek colours didn't impress me too much, they didn't show up well on my skin but I think they'd be nice on fairer skin. The four shadows are buttery, smooth, shimmery and blend so much easier than my Mac shadows. I don't usually wear pinky eye shadows but Sand Dollar blends into the skin leaving a subtle wash of colour all over the eyelid. Cove is the purple one and reminds me of Mac's Shale. Sunset is a rusty colour that looks like Antiqued from Mac, a perfect Autumn colour. Bonfire is the most matte of them but still has some shimmer to it. I decided to give the palette a go and create two different looks. Now, the lighting at my house is bad at the best of times. It's so dark today so I had to use the flash on the camera which washes the colour slightly out of the shadows but here goes.

First up I wanted to create a simple look that takes a few minutes. I applied Sand Dollar all over the eyelid to just above the crease. I didn't go all the way up to the brow bone because that much shimmer freaks me out and brings me back to my college days where I used to wear shimmery blue eye shadow from lash to eyebrow. I then took Sunset and applied it into the crease, blending well. There's always a worry when using pink and red eye shadows that you'll end up looking like you've been crying or like a vampire and these are not the looks I was going for, so I blended well! Then I took Bonfire on an angled brush and applied it along the upper and lower lashlines. This looked a lot more pigmented in natural light, so to make it show up with the flash, I wet my angled brush with some Fix+ and applied Bonfire wet along the upper lashline. Bit of mascara (Maybelline's One by One Volume Express in case you were wondering) and that was it. To add some drama, I applied some Avon SuperShock gel liner in Black Shimmer along the waterline. It's a simple and really quick look that is work friendly.

I started this next look by applying Cove all over the lid and into the crease. Then I took Bonfire and applied it into the crease, the outer V and long the upper lashline. Because this is a more matte shadow, get ready to blend a bit more than with shimmery eye shadows. Quick coat of the same mascara and eye liner as above and you're good to go.

Top - no flash; Bottom - with flash

It was €13 from Boots in Liffey Valley which is great value considering you get 4 eye shadows and 2 cheek colours. A wee palette like this is perfect if you're on the go, or if you're like me and like to have a lot of products with one in one's handbag and one's handbag tends to get very very heavy.

Have you tried any of the Stila palettes? If so, what ones have you tried and recommend them to me, payday is next week and I might need to go say hi again before I go to Spain!